Windu's purple sabre

[The Grim Squeaker]

What does an "optimized with the Force" saber blade look like? I never finished I, Jedi... If such a thing is possible, one wonders why it wasn't done more often?

It didnt look any different,
he says that to make a lightsaber perform with more than mechanical efficiency that it must be wielded together with the force,
he simply builds the saber physically then optimizes it's components with the force, it doesnt look any different as far as I can recall. (green)

[LaserRifleofDoom]

<snip>
Missed my edit, sorry. So he invented this "style" that only he uses and that explains why he uses a purple saber. I hesitate to think he specifically chose to put red in it to symbolize the Sith's use of the Dark Side (and thus red sabers).

It's a fascinating theory, and B Squared seemed to agree with it (his "unifying force = blue; living force = green; sith = red" thing). The only thing he didn't account for was the purple. But like you say, if Mace Windu had this weird style of saber combat that he invented, and the novels have him looking at the force as this strange spiderwebby thing with "shatterpoints" everywhere... maybe he's just his own thing?

Who knows.. maybe the first Dark Jedi to leave the Order to form the Sith happened to have a red lightsaber and THAT is why it became associated with the Sith order? Again, it's fun to speculate.

This is an interesting idea. Maybe Jedi base their lightsaber color acording to their personal philosophical views. So the people who go around with blue sabers all have a similar philosophy, different from green (or purple). And the red are just plain bad, and want everybody to know it. I really like that idea.
Maybe its a representation of earlier pre-Jedi orders. Before the big Jedi Order (with uber-emphasis) on Coruscant, there might have been the "Jedi of the Purest Green Saber" on one planet and the "Order of the Holy Blue Sword" on another. Maybe the choice of saber color is also representative of who your master was. The choice of a differing color represents him following a more obscure school.

All this tradition was of course lost, so Luke and the New Jedi have no idea what any of the varying colors mean. So they just build a saber with whatever crystal they happen to come across.

[hypernova]

What i have seen and have come to believe is this.

the jedi order got into the tradition of using only green and blue, not that they couldnt choose a different color(or the fact that blue and green gems are the most common, think about it what other colors can you have, brown,yellow,black,skyblue,pink,orange, would a jedi really want those colors?)

extending blades need 2 gems, and forgive me if my memory is failing me but i believe when corrans blade is extended i think it goes silver?or yellow?

games, i wouldnt take much relvence from the details of games, the general story and maybe general technologies i would take as fact but down to the details...like in jedi aprentice whatever, everyone can use 2 sabers and/or a staff saber(double bladed) i mean WTFH?! you have to train from childhood obsesivly to use a staff saber, and only 2 sith themselves have ever been recorded to use them. and only experienced jedi master have ever been recorded using 2 sabers adaquitly

Im a little off subject arent I.

personaly i just think Mace thinks hes special so he gets to have a special saber, and screw tradition

[Kurgan]

What i have seen and have come to believe is this.

the jedi order got into the tradition of using only green and blue, not that they couldnt choose a different color(or the fact that blue and green gems are the most common, think about it what other colors can you have, brown,yellow,black,skyblue,pink,orange, would a jedi really want those colors?)

extending blades need 2 gems, and forgive me if my memory is failing me but i believe when corrans blade is extended i think it goes silver?or yellow?

games, i wouldnt take much relvence from the details of games, the general story and maybe general technologies i would take as fact but down to the details...like in jedi aprentice whatever, everyone can use 2 sabers and/or a staff saber(double bladed) i mean WTFH?! you have to train from childhood obsesivly to use a staff saber, and only 2 sith themselves have ever been recorded to use them. and only experienced jedi master have ever been recorded using 2 sabers adaquitly

Im a little off subject arent I.

personaly i just think Mace thinks hes special so he gets to have a special saber, and screw tradition

"Jedi Apprentice"? Do you mean Jedi Academy? And if so, are you referring to the video game? The point of using two sabers or a saberstaff in that game is simple: it's cool! (And if you're a single saber purist, you can keep using one throughout the game and in MP)

Meh, according to one source (which I'm too lazy to look up/verify myself) the staff saber was supposedly used for training, so theoretically every Jedi "should" know how to use one. Two sabers doesn't seem to be a big deal. We've never seen a Jedi onscreen start with two, but picking up a second one to fight with (the rule is they have to be different colors!) is no problem (see Anakin in AOTC and about half the Jedi in the Geonosis Arena it seems).

There might also be some undercurrent in some EU source that a Jedi is spiritually "bonded" to his specific weapon, but that seems to be ignored in the prequels where Jedi go through sabers like changes of underwear and no emphasis is placed on building them and the colors are never explained.

And yes, there is this other mention in the EU of "extendable blades" that apparently you put a couple extra crystals in, and then you can press a button to make the blade suddenly shorter or longer. The Prequel Visual Dictionaries complicated this by making EVERY prequel Jedi's saber have a "blade length adjust" label on one of the little nubs on the hilt. I'm not sure if anything like that appears on the OT sabers (haven't tracked down a copy of the OT VD to see yet).

[Lord Pounder]

There might also be some undercurrent in some EU source that a Jedi is spiritually "bonded" to his specific weapon, but that seems to be ignored in the prequels where Jedi go through sabers like changes of underwear

Obviously you missed Obi Wan lecturing Anakin at the start of AotC for losing his saber while chasing Zam?

[hypernova]

yes they go through them quickly and that means they lose one every 4-5 months or so, ofr a jedi thats extremely often.

[RRoan]

Just a note, If you take Kotor 2 as canon. There are silver lightsabers. That is a lot more bad-ass than some wimpy purple color.

[DPDarkPrimus]

TPM Jedi toys had a plethora of lightsaber colors, but they were all blue and green from AOTC onwards. I recall seeing yellow, orange, and red lightsabers, besides Ki Adi Mundi's purple one.

[JediMaster415]

I've always figured that Jedi chose the saber's color by what was available and what their favorite color of those available were.

I seem to remember seeing a yellow lightsaber in AOTC. During the Arena battle. Plus in the EU, we have Jedi with all different colors of sabers.

I assembled a small list of saber colors and who used them (using Luukesabers for reference):
Qui Gon, Yoda, Luke, Jacen, Luminara == Green
Anakin Skywalker, Obi Wan, Luke, Tenel Ka, Aayla, Barris == Blue
Mace, Jaina, Anakin Solo, Ki-Adi-Mundi == Purple
Vader, Maul, Tyranus, Sidious, Leia, Malak == Red
Tahiri, Callista == Yellow
Corran == Silver
Lowbacca == "molten bronze"

Luukesabers still has a lot more listed that I've left out. I hope this helps for anyone who wants a list.

[Edi]

What i have seen and have come to believe is this.

the jedi order got into the tradition of using only green and blue, not that they couldnt choose a different color(or the fact that blue and green gems are the most common, think about it what other colors can you have, brown,yellow,black,skyblue,pink,orange, would a jedi really want those colors?)

extending blades need 2 gems, and forgive me if my memory is failing me but i believe when corrans blade is extended i think it goes silver?or yellow?

games, i wouldnt take much relvence from the details of games, the general story and maybe general technologies i would take as fact but down to the details...like in jedi aprentice whatever, everyone can use 2 sabers and/or a staff saber(double bladed) i mean WTFH?! you have to train from childhood obsesivly to use a staff saber, and only 2 sith themselves have ever been recorded to use them. and only experienced jedi master have ever been recorded using 2 sabers adaquitly

Im a little off subject arent I.

personaly i just think Mace thinks hes special so he gets to have a special saber, and screw tradition

Do you have a fucking general problem with proper spelling, capitalization and punctuation? I have yet to see a single post from you that isn't fucking illegible bullshit.

This forum is an English-language forum. This means that you will use recognizable English. It also means that you will not use hacker dialect (aka "l33t-speak") or annoying IM habits such as "ur" in place of "you are". You will also use capitalization properly, not to mention punctuation, sentence breaks, paragraphs, etc. If you don't like to type decent English, either learn or leave. Greater allowances for deviation from proper English may be made for those for whom English is a second language, within reason. You must at least give the impression that you are sincerely trying to construct proper English sentences.

I know I'm not the only one who is annoyed by this, you have already been warned at least once on the SLAM forum and I know there are some mods who like cracking down on people who fail to follow the above rule. Do everyone a favor and start complying, or things will eventually get very unpleasant.

To answer your points, the extendable lightsaber stuff originates from the EU, and the first time I remember it appearing is in KJA's Jedi Academy trilogy. I consider those to be of rather limited use, because while it gives longer reach, it requires more room to work unless you don't care about destroying everything around you.

As for colors, I don't see why someone wouldn't want an orange or golden colored lightsaber blade, or a silver-white one if they like those colors.

Edi

[Oskuro]

Errrr... *cough*

If I may switch SoD off for a moment, I find it quite curious how debates such as this come to be. As we all know, Windu got the saber because Jackson wanted it to be purple, and now, here we are debating about how this fits on the SW Universe

Well, I recently read (at www.imdb.com I belive) that Luke's saber in ROTJ was originally meant to be BLUE..... but they changed it because it was hard to make out aganist the sky on the Sarlacc Scene!

My guess: Originally there were only going to be blue and red sabers (Feels like a Team Deathmatch....), but technical decisions in moviemaking suddenly spawned a whole new concept. Funny how this works.

Back to SoD

[Oskuro]

Oh and, a little technical nitpick..... Golden or Silver sabers?
Gold and Silver are, basically, yellow and gray. What gives them the golden or silvery look is the reflections the cast when polished... And a source of light such as a lightsaber giving off reflections hits me as a bit odd... Unless we use some sort of containment field refraction effect to explain it, of course.

If I could choose the mechanics of my lightsaber, I would probably make it ignite air aroudn it to get a fire sword, or have it cast cracking voltaic arches all over the blade.... talk about intimidating!

[Kurgan]

There might also be some undercurrent in some EU source that a Jedi is spiritually "bonded" to his specific weapon, but that seems to be ignored in the prequels where Jedi go through sabers like changes of underwear

Obviously you missed Obi Wan lecturing Anakin at the start of AotC for losing his saber while chasing Zam?

Obi-Wan has lost a fair number of blades himself, methinks.

[Darth Yoshi]

To answer your points, the extendable lightsaber stuff originates from the EU, and the first time I remember it appearing is in KJA's Jedi Academy trilogy. I consider those to be of rather limited use, because while it gives longer reach, it requires more room to work unless you don't care about destroying everything around you.

As for colors, I don't see why someone wouldn't want an orange or golden colored lightsaber blade, or a silver-white one if they like those colors.

Edi

I remember seeing in a VD that Vader's OT lightsabre was extendable, though not on the scale of Corran Horn.